In all my time playing Diablo 2, I've found few very good charms (excluding the uniques). The market seems to be flooded with incredibly good charms - +1 to class skill tree, resistances, life, magic find, you name it. I've heard mention that it is possible to re-roll charms, and I've looked up the formulas. However, I know that level has a lot to do with the possibilities involved in the randomly re-rolled charm.

What is a good strategy for finding and re-rolling charms with the express purpose of creating high-power ("godly") charms for selling?

2 Answers
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Simple stepsStep 1: If you know what sort of charms you are looking for, you can use the charm affix list. This will give you the item level requirements for your specific charm. If you are looking for both a prefix AND a suffix, take the highest item level. Your character's level must be at minimum 75% of this.Step 2: Find an area that has monsters that are at least the item's level. For the higher level charms, bosses may be the only option. Area level reference here. As shown, max area level is 85, And even Hell Baal is only level 99. So any item level of 85 or higher can only be found in the Worldstone Keep (Hell) and onwards. eg. One of the suffix`s is Vita, with an item level of 77 or 91. Since the only monster above level 91 is Hell Baal, getting this suffix means any charms he drops are level 91, and have a chance of the higher Vita suffix. Any other monster that drops a Vita charm will have less life (36-40 as opposed to 41-45).Step 3: Brutally murder any and all monsters that meet these criteria. There may be some collateral genocide. This is usually to your benefit. Hope a charm drops from these monsters.Step 4: Continue committing genocide until enough charms have dropped. Bonus if you collect lots of gems, too. You'll need them.Step 5: After identifying charms, see if any provide what you're looking for.Step 6: Insert charm and three perfect gems into your cube and hit Transmute.Step 7: Does the charm provide what you wanted? If so, success! If not, repeat step 6.

Item Level

Item level is a hidden stat for every item. It dictates what affixes are possible for the item to have. Whatever items a monster drops are the same level as the monster. eg. Monsters in Worldstone Keep (Hell) are level 85. Therefore, all the magic items they drop are item level 85. Note: This does NOT guarantee that the items they drop will be better than what you currently have. They have a CHANCE of rolling a higher level affix.

Example: The prefix Serrated is item level 67. This means that any monster at level 67 or higher has a chance of dropping a charm with the Serrated prefix. However, the monster might drop a charm with the Forked prefix, which requires item level 37. This does NOT mean the item's level is 37. The charm's item level is whatever level the monster was. This is important to remember. When re-rolling the charm, it still has a chance of generating the Serrated prefix. Not a high chance, but a chance. Whereas a monster of level 37 can drop the same Forked charm, but has NO chance of generating the Serrated prefix, ever.

The item level will match the inputted item, so you already need a charm that's of a high enough level to get the affixes you want. You can look here to find out what the minimum item level your current charms are. (warning, the list is huge) Look above for the explanation on item level.

Once you have a charm you don't want that's a high enough level, it's all a matter of luck.

Simplest example: If you're looking for a +1 to a skill tree, these are all item level 50. There are no other charms that have an item level of 50, so for the best chance of getting the tree you want, you'll have to find a grand charm that gives only +1 to a tree you don't want, and start rolling. The chances of this happening are roughly 10%. For the math (lots of math), go here. These are your best chance for finding + to skills.

Grand Charm Affix List
Note: I`m going to be limiting this list to grand charms only. The other lists can be found at the above affix list link.

This is okay advice for how to get a +1 skill GC - not godly by any means (+skill and other mods would be). Nothing about how to find them?
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Ian PugsleyApr 30 '12 at 18:05

According to the linked list, +2 to a tree isn't possible, and neither are +1 to all skills. I'll be adding requirements on how to find them shortly.
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FrankApr 30 '12 at 18:09

Hmm, I appear to have been remembering ammy mods. Subtract one from all those levels. :P Nonetheless, something like a pcombat with life/res is not gonna be a level 50 charm.
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Ian PugsleyApr 30 '12 at 18:22

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The place where you find the charms is crucial - people often will sell Grand Charms that drop from Baal for a decent price, as re-rolls can give you the best GC's in the game.
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KotsuApr 30 '12 at 19:42

@fbueckert has covered everything already, I'd just like to suggest that it also depends on the char - get a character good at mowing down mobs, suitable Act 5 Hell place to kill them, and just count on the large number of drops to include a good haul of charms (that you can then reroll if needed). It won't be the highest level like Baal drops but good enough for +skill mods.